[meteorite-list] OT: Happy Birthday Sputnik...50

[Rob Wesel]

Nakhla Dog Meteorites warmly remembers all dogs in space, dogs that became 
meteors, and dogs hit by them.

      Rob Wesel
      http://www.nakhladogmeteorites.com
      ------------------
      We are the music makers...
      and we are the dreamers of the dreams.
      Willy Wonka, 1971


      The True Story of Laika the Dog
      By Anatoly Zak
      Staff Writer
      posted: 03:12 pm ET
      03 November 1999



On November 3, 1957, the U.S.S.R. stunned the world with a space 
sensation -- the launch of Sputnik 2 with a live dog on-board. But many 
details of what happened to the mission have only recently been revealed.

The Space Age had started less than a month before, with the launch of the 
first Soviet satellite on October 4, 1957. Sputnik 1, a 40-pound sphere, 
carried a simple transmitter and was considered very heavy compared to the 
U.S. spacecraft under development at the time.

Enter Sputnik 2. The Soviet press boasted about the 250-pound object 
equipped with a cabin, providing all the necessary life support for a dog 
named Laika. Well, almost. The Soviets admitted soon after the launch that 
the spacecraft would not return, meaning that the animal was doomed from the 
start. Years after Sputnik 2 burned up in the atmosphere, conflicting 
scenarios of Laika's death were circulating in the West.

Recently, several Russian sources revealed that Laika survived in orbit for 
four days and then died when the cabin overheated. The design of the cabin 
was derived from the nose sections of experimental ballistic missiles that 
carried dogs into the upper atmosphere in short and relatively slow-speed 
flights, ending in a parachute landing.

With Sputnik 2, the Cold War politics left no time for designers to develop 
a life-support system for a long-duration flight, not to mention to protect 
a spacecraft for a fiery reentry.

Laika's story started soon after the Sputnik 1 triumph, when Nikita 
Khrushchev, the Soviet leader at the time, hosted a big reception for 
leading rocket designers. Among those present was Sergei Korolev, the 
founder of the Soviet space program. At the reception, Khrushchev made the 
suggestion that another Sputnik be launched to mark the 40th Anniversary of 
the Bolshevik Revolution celebrated on November 7.

At the time, Korolev had a sophisticated research satellite in the works. 
However, it could not possibly be ready for takeoff before December 1957. 
That satellite would later become Sputnik 3. To meet the November 
anniversary deadline, an entirely new design for Sputnik 2 emerged.

According to various Russian sources, the official decision to launch 
Sputnik 2 before November 7 was made on October 10 or 12, 1957. In any case, 
Korolev's team had less than four weeks to design and build the spacecraft.

"All traditions developed in rocket technology were thrown out (during work 
on the second satellite)," wrote Boris Chertok, deputy to Sergei Korolev. 
"The second satellite was created without preliminary design, or any kind of 
design." According to Chertok's memoirs, most elements of the spacecraft 
were manufactured from sketches, while engineers moved into production 
facilities to assist workers on site.

The common belief is that Sputnik 2 failed to separate from its booster. In 
reality, the satellite was designed to remain attached to the upper stage of 
its launcher, so that the rocket's own telemetry system could be used to 
transmit data from the spacecraft.

The scientists did their best to benefit from this opportunity created by 
Cold War politics. Laika's cabin was equipped with a television camera, 
along with sensors to measure ambient pressure and temperature, as well as 
the canine passenger's blood pressure, breath frequency and heartbeat. These 
instruments allowed ground controllers to monitor how Laika functioned and 
died in space. Above the dog's cabin, the engineers mounted a spherical 
container that was developed for Sputnik 1. It held a radio transmitter and 
an instrument to register ultraviolet and x-ray radiation.

After a successful launch, Sputnik 2 exhausted its electrical batteries 
after six days in orbit. With all systems dead, the spacecraft continued 
circling the Earth until April 14, 1958, when it reentered the atmosphere 
after 2,570 orbits.

The Sputnik 2 flight exemplified how science was propelled by Cold War 
politics -- a trend that would become more pronounced on both sides of the 
Atlantic in later years.

Although advertised as another example of the superiority of the Soviet 
system, Laika's mission also brought a few unintended results. In the West, 
Sputnik 2 renewed the debate over the treatment of animals, while in the 
U.S.S.R., the flight was widely ridiculed by ordinary citizens as 
propaganda.